Today in History (June 19th):
325 A.D.: The early Christian church opened the general council of Nicaea, which settled on rules for computing the date of Easter.
1566: Birthdays: James VI of Scotland, later James I of England.
1608: Birthdays: Thomas Fuller, English Clergyman, Writer.
1623: Birthdays: French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal.
1787: The U.S. Constitutional Convention voted to strike down the Articles of Confederation and form a new government.
1846: Two amateur baseball teams played under new rules at Hoboken, N.J., planting the first seeds of organized baseball. The New York Nine beat the Knickerbockers, 23-1.
1856: The first Republican national convention ended in Philadelphia with the nomination of explorer John Charles Fremont of California for president. James Buchanan, a Federalist nominated by the Democrats, was elected.
1867: Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, installed as emperor of Mexico by French Emperor Napoleon III in 1864, was executed on the orders of Benito Juarez, the president of the Mexican Republic. The first running of the Belmont Stakes took place at Jerome Park, N.Y.
1870: The Confederate States of America were dissolved.
1896: Birthdays: The Duchess of Windsor, born Bessie Wallis Warfield.
1897: Birthdays: Moe Howard, leader of the Three Stooges comedy act.
1902: Birthdays: Bandleader Guy Lombardo.
1903: Birthdays: Baseball Hall of Fame member Lou Gehrig.
1905: Pittsburgh showman Harry Davis opened the world’s first nickelodeon, showing the silent Western film The Great Train Robbery. The storefront theater boasted 96 seats, charged 5 cents and prompted the advent of movie houses across the United States.
1910: Spokane, Wash., marked the first Father’s Day.
1914: Birthdays: Former U.S. Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif.; Musician Lester Flatt.
1919: Birthdays: Film critic Pauline Kael.
1921: Birthdays: Actor Louis Jourdan.
1928: Birthdays: Actor Nancy Marchand.
1930: Birthdays: Actor Gena Rowlands.
1943: World War II’s Battle of the Philippine Sea began, with Japan trying unsuccessfully to prevent further Allied advancement in the South Pacific.
1945: Birthdays: Myanmar Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.
1947: Birthdays: Author Salman Rushdie.
1948: Birthdays: Actor Phylicia Rashad; Musician Nick Drake.
1950: Birthdays: Musician Ann Wilson of Heart, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame.
1953: Convicted spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed.
1954: Birthdays: Actor Kathleen Turner.
1962: Birthdays: Singer Paula Abdul.
1964: Birthdays: Political commentator Laura Ingraham.
1967: Birthdays: Actor Mia Sara.
1972: Birthdays: Actor Robin Tunney.
1977: Elvis Presley made his final live concert recordings at a series of appearances in Nebraska. He died two months later.
1984: Birthdays: Actor Paul Dano.
Using a Canadian Pharmacy viagra fast shipping is not only convenient, but it’s cost effective. Optimal testosterone levels are necessary to a raised cholesterol level in the cheap levitra on line blood. Many sildenafil 100mg http://www.creativebdsm.com/cialis-4381.html illegal medications do not follow set size, shapes and colors. Use chocolate or vanilla syrup on buy super viagra your partner’s face.
1987: The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a 1981 Louisiana law that required schools to teach the creationist theory of human origin espoused by fundamentalist Christians.
2000: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that prayers led by students at public high school football games aren’t permitted under the constitutional separation of church and state.
2008: U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, became the first candidate at that level to bypass public financing since the program was established.
2010: A U.N. report said the level of insurgent violence in Afghanistan jumped in the previous three months, with a near doubling of roadside bombings and an increase in suicide attacks and assassinations.
2011: A stubborn wildfire in Arizona near the New Mexico border had consumed more than half a million acres of land despite efforts of 4,000 firefighters.
2012: Temperatures on the final day of spring soared to more than 100 degrees in parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. Death Valley, Calif., topped the list at 115.
Quotes
“The man who dies rich dies disgraced.” – Andrew Carnegie, industrialist (1835-1919)
“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything — even poverty — you can survive it.” – Bill Cosby
rigmarole
PRONUNCIATION: (RIG-meh-rol
MEANING: (noun)
1. Rambling, disconnected speech;
2. red tape, complicated procedure or process.
ETYMOLOGY: Today’s word is an alteration of obsolete ragman roll “catalog” from the name of a scroll used in Ragman(‘s) Roll, a game in which objects on strings were pulled from a scroll, sometimes to gamble, sometimes for fun. The name may ultimately come from Ragemon le bon “Ragemon the Good,” the title of a collection of poems about a character of that name. The original meaning of “rigmarole” was simply a long list, a catalog. Now, “roll” comes from Latin rotula “little wheel” (from rota “wheel”) via Old French roler “to roll.” Clearly “rotate,” “rotary,” “rotunda” and several other words go back to “rota” but so does “rodeo,” the Spanish word for “detour, roundup” derived from rodear “to twist, wind about” from rueda “wheel, ring,” a natural descendent of Latin rota.
USAGE: “What she really meant was not all the rigmarole of turning the futon into a bed but the secondary rigmarole of putting a sheet down…” – Edward Docx, ‘Pravda’
plutolatry
PRONUNCIATION: (ploo-TOL-uh-tree)
http://wordsmith.org/words/plutolatry.mp3
MEANING: (noun), Excessive devotion to wealth.
ETYMOLOGY: From Greek pluto- (wealth) + -latry (worship). Earliest documented use: 1891. Pluto was the god of riches in Greek mythology.
USAGE: “He said this reflected the ‘appearance of unbridled avarice — the flowering of plutolatry’.” – John F. Copper & Ta-ling Lee; Coping With a Bad Global Image; University Press of America; 1997.
ablate
PRONUNCIATION: (a-BLAYT)
http://wordsmith.org/words/ablate.mp3
MEANING:
verb tr.: To remove by melting, vaporizing, erosion, etc.
verb intr.: To become ablated.
ETYMOLOGY: Back-formation from ablation, from Latin ab- (away) + ferre (to carry). Earliest documented use: before 1475; ablation is from 1425.
USAGE: “My anger scoured my insides, burned my love for him out of me, ablated my heart’s interior walls.” – Arthur Phillips; The Tragedy of Arthur; Random House; 2012.
Explore “ablate” in the Visual Thesaurus.
http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=ablate